Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili’s research while affiliated with University of Pittsburgh and other places

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Publications (5)


Informal Institutions in Comparative Politics
  • Article

July 2024

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45 Reads

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2 Citations

Comparative Politics

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Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili

Research in comparative politics on informal institutions can be grouped into analysis of norms and values within government institutions and studies of self-governance in communities that are relatively isolated from states. Three recent books by Nadya Hajj, Shelby Grossman, and David Skarbek advance this research agenda by showing that self-governance can be significant even in contexts where the state is present, including refugee camps, markets in urban settings, and in prisons. They also offer abundant insights into how to overcome challenges with measuring and analyzing informal institutions. Rather than prioritize private or public governance, the authors see these as imperfect alternatives that invite analysis of why private governance works better in some contexts than in others for communities seeking to improve their lives in challenging circumstances.



Selected OECD countries plus Ukraine, 2015
The political economy of public procurement in Ukraine
  • Article
  • Full-text available

February 2024

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56 Reads

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4 Citations

Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice

This article links Ukraine’s response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022 to institutional reforms in the decade before the current war. After the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, Ukrainian civil society, business, and government jointly established an institutional framework to monitor public procurement. The problem of devising institutions to monitor behavior on an ongoing basis is not generally solved through constitutional reforms and revolutions. Public procurement reforms contributed to a culture of coproduction of monitoring that has persisted even when pressure was exerted on open government after Russia’s full-scale invasion. The reforms implemented after the Revolution of Dignity created a robust institutional framework to scale up institutions to monitor public procurement during Ukraine’s ongoing reconstruction effort.

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Institutional stickiness and Afghanistan’s unending revolution

November 2023

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46 Reads

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3 Citations

Public Choice

Analysis of revolutions typically focuses on de jure constitutions and how their elite- or mass-led character influences their consequences. De facto constitutions are political and economic rules that people use to govern themselves which may or may not be recognized in the evolving de jure constitution. We argue that the nature of change resulting from revolutions depends on whether the emergent constitutional order recognizes the autonomy of de facto constitutions. We theorize neglect, disregard, and hostility toward de facto constitutions contributes to cycles of constitutional instability. We use this theory to explain Afghanistan’s unending revolution. Neither elite-led nor mass-led revolutions in Afghanistan produced a lasting constitutional order because they share a disregard for the de facto constitution.


Exploring the potential for blockchains in fragile states

August 2023

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23 Reads

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2 Citations

Chinese Public Administration Review

Blockchains have been hailed as a game-changing institutional technology. Most of the analysis of blockchains focuses on their uses in the Global North. Though there is increasing consideration of their uses in the Global South, few studies consider the uses of blockchains in fragile states. In this paper, we consider the potential for blockchain deployments by governments, international organizations, and citizens in fragile states. We find that government deployments are unlikely in fragile states, though blockchains can be useful through their increasing use by aid organizations and by providing people with opportunities, such as access to cryptocurrencies. Blockchains may be revolutionary, but the extent to which they have improved the lives of people in fragile states is questionable.

Citations (3)


... Despite the vast research agenda [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] in the field of public procurement, we consider it necessary to study the key approaches and possibilities that arise in the area of project management to enhance the public procurement experience that should add on for a better understanding of the techniques and stimulate the interest of policymakers and other stakeholders in the innovations in the public administration system. ...

Reference:

Transparency of procurement management via the project management tools
The political economy of public procurement in Ukraine

Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice

... Other disciplines -like comparative or international politics -may not see things the same way. Murtazashvili and Murtazashvili (2024) provide a fruitful review article showing how insights from the economics of anarchy may be of interest to these two disciplines. In contrast with internationalists who see anarchism as the jumping off point for the Hobbesian jungle, or comparativists who may see anarchic institutions as playing second fiddle to powerful states (Murtazashvili & Murtazashvili, 2024, p. 3), the economic study of anarchy adds a richness to our understanding of historical state building and the importance of informal institutions. ...

Informal Institutions in Comparative Politics
  • Citing Article
  • July 2024

Comparative Politics

... For these reasons, we expect rebel regimes to be associated with the selective enforcement of property rights. In such contexts, individuals excluded from the ruling coalition often rely on de facto institutions for property security (Basir et al., 2023). Our theory suggests that such insecurity stems from constitutional changes enacted by rebel regimes, driven by incentives to selectively provide property protection. ...

Institutional stickiness and Afghanistan’s unending revolution

Public Choice